xix, 294 pages : 24 cm

The whole country got excited by Houdini's campaign against faking spiritualists. He careened through the country, offering money for spirit contacts he couldn't duplicate by admitted magical chicanery. It was a heyday not only for Houdini but for the spirit-callers and there was an equally famous protagonist who thought the spirits could indeed be contacted, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A photo at the front records a meeting between Houdini and Doyle and Houdini gives Doyle his own chapter. There's an earlier chapter on Daniel Dunglas Home, the English engineer of spectacular paranormal effects. Houdini raises hell with spiritualists who were giving their (usually paying) clients a vision of heavens to come, and shares the methods used to practice "fake" and sensational spiritualism. Houdini was nothing if not unrelenting. As a taste of things to come, he ends his introduction with the words: "Up to the present time everything that I have investigated has been the result of deluded brains."

Facsimile reprint of the first edition, published: New York and London : Harper & Brothers, 1924

Includes bibliographical references and index

The founders of modern spiritualism -- The Davenport brothers -- Daniel Dunglas home -- Palladino -- Ann O'Delia Diss Debar -- Dr. Slade and his spirit slates -- Slate writing and other methods -- Spirit photography -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- Why ectoplasm? -- By-products of spiritualism -- Investigations-wise and otherwise -- How mediums obtain information -- What you must believe to be a spiritualist -- Magicians as detectors of fraud

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